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APIs · head to head

Formance vs Nango

Formance logo

Formance

APIs

Open source double-entry ledger and payment orchestration for money-moving software

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Nango logo

Nango

Automation Integration

Open source unified API and OAuth infrastructure for product integrations, licensed under Elastic License 2.0

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Formance formance holds no money and provides no regulatory cover, so it must be paired with a payments provider or bank, and buyers occasionally mistake a ledger for a treasury system and discover the gap late.; Nango the licence is Elastic License 2.0, which is source available rather than OSI open source, and it forbids offering Nango to third parties as a managed service, so anyone planning to resell or embed it in a platform for their own customers has a genuine legal problem.
  • They diverge on capability: Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Nango covers Managed OAuth.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Formance and Nango actually diverge.

Attributes where Formance and Nango differ
AttributeFormanceNango
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feePer connection per month
PlatformsLinux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, APIWeb, Linux, Docker
CategoryAPIsAutomation Integration

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Formance

  • Double-entry ledger
  • Numscript transaction DSL
  • Multi-currency
  • Payments connectivity
  • Reconciliation
  • Self-hosted deployment
  • Cloud offering
  • API and SDKs

Only in Nango

  • Managed OAuth
  • Pre-built integrations
  • Custom syncs and actions
  • Incremental sync
  • Rate limit and retry handling
  • Webhooks
  • Self-hosting
  • Unified models

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Formance

  • A marketplace splitting a single customer payment between seller, platform fee and tax that needs the split to be atomic and auditablenot Nango
  • A fintech whose homegrown balances table produced numbers finance could not reconcile and now needs proper double-entry before an auditnot Nango
  • A payments team that wants one normalised model across several PSPs so reconciliation is not written separately for eachnot Nango
  • A company that wants its ledger under a licence it can keep running even if the vendor disappearsnot Nango

Nango

  • A SaaS product that needs to ship twenty customer-facing integrations without hiring a team to maintain OAuth and token refresh for eachnot Formance
  • A team that needs a niche or internal API integrated, which closed unified API vendors will not build for themnot Formance
  • A company with data residency or security constraints that must self-host the integration layer rather than send customer tokens to a vendornot Formance
  • An engineering team replacing a homegrown integration service whose main cost is silent token expiry and rate limit failures in productionnot Formance

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Formance

  • Formance holds no money and provides no regulatory cover, so it must be paired with a payments provider or bank, and buyers occasionally mistake a ledger for a treasury system and discover the gap late.
  • Numscript is a domain-specific language your team must learn, and while it makes complex splits expressible it also means transaction logic sits outside the languages your engineers already debug well.
  • Self-hosting a ledger that must never lose or duplicate a transaction is a serious operational commitment covering backups, upgrades and Postgres tuning, which is real cost the zero licence fee hides.
  • Enterprise pricing is not published, so the difference between the free path and the supported path cannot be evaluated without a sales conversation.
  • The company is much smaller than the incumbent alternatives, and while the MIT licence protects the code it does not protect the roadmap, so features on the hosted side may arrive slowly or change direction.

Nango

  • The licence is Elastic License 2.0, which is source available rather than OSI open source, and it forbids offering Nango to third parties as a managed service, so anyone planning to resell or embed it in a platform for their own customers has a genuine legal problem.
  • Pricing is per connection where a connection is one authorised end-user account, so cost scales linearly with your customer base and a product where each user links several services multiplies quickly beyond what a headline plan price suggests.
  • Pre-built integrations vary in depth, and a connection that exists is not the same as a connection that covers the endpoints and objects your feature needs, so each one must be verified before it is designed into a roadmap.
  • Custom syncs are written in TypeScript and run in Nango model, which means integration logic lives in a vendor runtime and migrating away later requires rewriting it rather than lifting it out.
  • Self-hosting removes the vendor from the data path but transfers operational responsibility for a component that holds customer OAuth tokens, and few teams appreciate the security burden that comes with running that themselves.

Pricing, plan by plan

Formance

Free
  • Open SourceFree
    • MIT licensed core ledger
    • Numscript transaction DSL
    • Multi-currency tracking
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Managed or private deployment
    • Payments connectivity and reconciliation
    • Support with response commitments

Nango

Free
  • FreeFree
    • 10 connections
    • Pre-built integrations
    • Managed OAuth
  • Starter$50/month
    • 20 connections included
    • 1 USD per additional connection
    • Custom syncs and actions
  • Growth$500/month
    • 100 connections included
    • 1 USD per additional connection
    • Higher limits
  • Enterprise$undefined/month
    • Quoted
    • Custom connection volumes
    • Security review and SLA

Which should you pick?

Choose Formance if

  • You need double-entry ledger.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, API.
  • You also want numscript transaction dsl.
Formance review

Choose Nango if

  • You need managed oauth.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Linux, Docker.
  • You also want pre-built integrations.
Nango review

Questions people ask

Is Formance or Nango better?
Neither clearly leads. Formance starts at Free and Nango at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Formance or Nango?
Formance starts at Free and Nango at Free.
Does Formance or Nango run on more platforms?
Formance runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, API. Nango runs on Web, Linux, Docker.
Can I use Formance for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Formance best used for?
Formance is most often used for a marketplace splitting a single customer payment between seller, platform fee and tax that needs the split to be atomic and auditable, a fintech whose homegrown balances table produced numbers finance could not reconcile and now needs proper double-entry before an audit, a payments team that wants one normalised model across several psps so reconciliation is not written separately for each, a company that wants its ledger under a licence it can keep running even if the vendor disappears. Of those, a marketplace splitting a single customer payment between seller, platform fee and tax that needs the split to be atomic and auditable and a fintech whose homegrown balances table produced numbers finance could not reconcile and now needs proper double-entry before an audit are not what Nango is typically brought in for.
What can Formance do that Nango cannot?
Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Numscript transaction DSL, Multi-currency, Payments connectivity. Nango covers Managed OAuth, Pre-built integrations, Custom syncs and actions, Incremental sync.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Formance: Is Formance really open source?

Yes. The core ledger is MIT licensed with full source access and no deployment restrictions.

Nango: Is Nango open source?

It is source available under Elastic License 2.0. You can read, modify and self-host it, but you cannot offer it to third parties as a managed service. That is not the same as an OSI approved open source licence.

Formance: Does Formance move money?

No. It records and orchestrates movements; the actual payments happen at a PSP or bank you connect.

Nango: How is it priced?

Per connection per month, where a connection is one authorised end-user account. Free to 10 connections, 50 dollars a month for Starter with 20, 500 for Growth with 100, and one dollar per additional connection.

Formance: What does the enterprise version cost?

Not published. It is an annual subscription quoted per customer.

Nango: Can we integrate an API Nango does not support?

Yes. Custom syncs and actions in TypeScript cover any API including internal ones, which is the main advantage over closed unified API products.

Formance: Do I have to use Numscript?

Yes for anything beyond the simplest transfers. It is how multi-party transactions are expressed atomically.

Nango: Can we self-host it?

Yes, under the Elastic License 2.0 terms, which permit self-hosting for your own use but not resale as a service.

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